Fraud Case Defendant To Testify

March 2, 1986|By James H. Tolpin, Staff Writer

Federal prosecutors and U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service officials say they are on the verge of a major breakthrough in Operation Matrimony, the 2-year-old investigation of a Palm Beach County ring responsible for 150 allegedly fraudulent marriages.

An important defendant - an accused marriage ``arranger`` - has agreed to testify for the government in exchange for the dismissal of all but one of a dozen charges against her, prosecutors and the woman`s attorney say.

Windolyn ``Gay-Gay`` Reeves of Pahokee was expected to plead guilty in a West Palm Beach federal courtroom Monday, but her trial was continued after a co- defendant learned last week of the impending plea.

Prosecutors have accused Reeves of soliciting fees to arrange six marriages between American citizens and Haitians seeking to improve their immigration status so they can become eligible for benefits programs, bring relatives to the country and secure themselves against deportation.

The prosecution says Reeves, 29, can provide crucial government testimony not only against co-defendants named in her six cases, but also against the ring`s most active arranger - her husband, Claude Joseph, who faces charges in 12 separate cases.

The informal agreement, Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Atkinson said, requires Reeves, who would face a maximum five-year prison term, tell them everything she knows about the marriage ring. If Reeves later balks in her testimony, prosecutors still have leverage over her when they tell the sentencing judge how cooperative she was in their prosecuting other cases.

Orsley said Reeves` plea puts her in a strong position because she will be the first defendant to turn government witness. He said he hopes that translates into probation for her instead of prison time.

In an important concession, Orsley said, Reeves plans to waive her privilege as a wife to not testify against her husband, Joseph. The government has claimed that the couple`s marriage is fraudulent, though Atkinson said no charge was filed for lack of a witness against them.

Mark LeVine, Joseph`s defense attorney, has asked for a continuance.

In the three cases that have so far gone to trial, the government has relied on testimony from the Haitian immigrants` wives - women who say they agreed to receive money, usually around $1,500, in exchange for marrying.

The marriages were to end in divorce after the couple submitted an immigration form swearing the couple lived together. The wives, who have not been charged, said addresses written down as the couple`s home were false, because the couple never lived together as husband and wife.

That prosecution strategy has yielded mixed results.

In the first trial in October, a jury acquitted the Rev. Clifford Davis of the Wesleyan Holiness Community Church in Belle Glade and a Haitian immigrant whose marriage the government said he arranged.

The two other cases involved Bernice Coleman, an arranger convicted Feb. 7 of conspiracy to file a false statement and with actually making the false statement. Each offense carries a maximum five-year prison term.

Coleman`s co-defendant in that case, Haitian laborer Cyril Esperat, also was convicted on both counts.

At her second trial, on Feb. 13, a jury convicted Haitian laborer Desliere Pompilus of filing a false statement, but acquitted Coleman on one count and could not reach a verdict on the second.

She faces three more trials. Trials also are pending for four other alleged arrangers.

For practical reasons dealing with time and money, prosecutors would like to see Coleman and other defendants plead guilty.

Although Richard Smith, INS assistant district director for investigations in Miami, said his investigators identified about 150 phony marriages, they sought indictments in fewer than 40 cases, ones they considered strong.

``An attorney who tried to indict all those people would be fired,`` he said.

Besides, he said, those aliens who are convicted, as well as those who are not or who are not even tried, are subject to deportation proceedings.